Grupo Televisa SAB (TV) Q3 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

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Grupo Televisa SAB (TV -1.72%)
Q3 2021 Earnings Call
Oct 22, 2021, 9:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning, everyone; and welcome to Grupo Televisa's Third Quarter 2021 Conference Call. Before we begin, I would like to draw your attention to the press release, which explains the use of forward-looking statements and applies to everything we discuss in today's call and in the earnings release.

I will now turn the call over to Mr. Alfonso de Angoitia, Co-Chief Executive Officer of Grupo Televisa. Please go ahead, sir.

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Sarah. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us. With me today are Antonio Gonzalez, CEO of Cable; Alex Penna, CEO of Sky; and Carlos Phillips and Antonio Lara, Corporate Vice President of Finance and Administration respectively.

During the third quarter, we experienced an overall positive economic environment in Mexico despite the third wave of COVID-19, relatively high inflation and raising interest rates. The economic recovery continues to be led by demand of products manufactured in Mexico from the United States, while remittances sent by migrants in north of the border keep hitting new monthly records and have helped domestic consumers.

In Mexico, around 66 million people have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccines, accounting for 51% of the population, while about 48 million people have been fully vaccinated, representing 37% of the total. This has continued to a more benign outlook for mobility and the new normality going forward. Since the end of August, children returned to in-person classes for the '21, '22 school year, while labor force is gradually going back to the office. So we're confident that the Mexican economy will experience a rebound of 6% in 2021, including growth of around 4% in the fourth quarter. Moreover, the economic recovery should set the ground for GDP growth of about 3% in 2022.

Under this environment, our Content business continues growing at a healthy pace. Advertising activity from the private sector continues to be robust. Cable and Sky continue to perform relatively well, but several factors have led to soft RGU net-adds for both, such as an increase in out-of-home activities, price adjustments at Cable and a still relatively high unemployment rate in Mexico. At the same time, some of these factors have translated into lower recharges at Sky's prepaid packages.

Moving on to our financial results for the quarter, consolidated revenue reached MXN26.1 billion, representing a year-on-year growth of 9.1%, while operating segment income reached MXN11 billion equivalent to a year-on-year increase of 4.2%. Bernardo and I are glad to see that most of our assets retained positive momentum in the third quarter. The strategy to turnaround our Cable segment in 2021 has proven to be successful and will allow us to deliver year-on-year revenue and EBITDA growth for the full year. We are also excited about the opportunity that we have ahead of us to accelerate Cable RGU net-adds, more evidently in 2022, driven by the aggressive FTTH expansion plan implemented this year.

Now turning to the third quarter financial results in our Content division, [Technical Issues] by 15.8%, as the economic recovery is causing a surge in activity in most industry verticals fueling an acceleration in advertising [Technical Issues] the private sector. Most businesses are looking to reconnect their brands and products [Technical Issues] consumers and Televisa's increased ratings during the third quarter, particularly on prime time gave us a great advantage.

Private sector advertising revenues were strong more than 16% year-on-year. On the other hand, government advertising revenues remained relatively weak, driven by ongoing austerity [Technical Issues] as we have repeatedly mentioned government advertising has been shrinking over the last couple of years, so today its share of total is already very low, particularly for Televisa.

Royalties from Univision of $110.7 million were 20.2% year-on-year, supported by materially higher ratings and the strong economic recovery in the United States. Univision's robust operating performance was also driven by several initiatives implemented by management, including a revamp of the sales team, the optimization of advertising inventory and focus on profitability. Univision's solid revenue growth should continue in 2022, given the historically [Technical Issues] upfront with the highest volume and also highest prices. We are confident that Univision's traditional media business will continue to grow in the medium-term, supported by the initiatives implemented by Wade and his team to revamp these operations. We are also convinced that the global streaming platform to be launched next year, will be Univision's main growth engine.

All in, during the quarter, content revenue increased by 13.4%, while operating segment income grew by 2.9%. Our content margin contracted to 37.2% due to a difficult comp associated with more production of content including sporting events related to the Olympics and the Gold Cup. In 2020, the COVID-19 lockdowns led us to have less content production costs as we broadcasted several reruns and many sporting events were canceled. With advertising revenue up by 24% year-on-year during the first nine months of 2021, we are confident that our full year advertising revenue will be very close to pre-COVID levels. We believe this highlights that free-to-air [Technical Issues] platform to build and improve brand recognition and to sell products and services in Mexico.

Moving on to the performance of our content during the third quarter [Technical Issues] of the top 20 programs on Mexico's broadcast television were produced and transmitted by Televisa. This included telenovelas, dramas, newscasts and comedies. Televisa's top three programs during [Technical Issues] had audiences between 135% and 150% higher than the top rated program of our closest competitor. Throughout the week, Televisa's audiences were 97% higher than those of the second largest broadcaster, while audiences at our flagship network, Las Estrellas were 175% higher than those of our closest competitor. This shows that the audience gap with our closest competitor continues to increase, compared to 89% and 151% higher audiences respectively during the second quarter, given the solid result ratings of our program. During the third quarter, our main newscast had 61% [Technical Issues] than those of the other two free-to-air television broadcasters combined.

Finally, the 10 soccer matches with the highest audiences in Mexico during the third quarter were transmitted by Televisa. In the U.S., Univision's ratings on linear television increased by 16% year-on-year during the third quarter, significantly exceeding ratings growth for all other media companies in the United States. We are very proud to report that the strength of Univision's ratings has been driven by Televisa content. [Technical Issues] 100% of Univision's prime time programing grid. This audience metrics in Mexico and the United States are evidence that Televisa's strategy to revamp our content production implemented a couple of years ago, has been very successful.

Now, let me turn the call over to Antonio, CEO of Cable.

Jose Antonio Gonzalez Anaya -- Chief Executive Officer of Izzi Grupo Televisa's Cable Company

Thank you, Alfonso. During the third quarter, our Cable segment delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 5.8%, while operating segment income increased by 5.6%. Our Residential segment revenue grew by 5.8%, while our Enterprise segment, which accounts for around 15% of total cable revenue, increased by only 0.6%, mostly due to the timing of revenue recognition. Our cable business keeps growing with higher average revenue per user, ARPU in new sales and a strong improvement in the product mix.

We added 52,000 revenue generating units, reaching a total of 14.4 million RGUs at the end of the quarter. To put this in perspective, for the full year 2019, we added 800,000 RGUs, while the same number for 2020 was 1.4 million. This reflects that net-adds in 2020 were an outlier, driven by an extraordinary surge in the demand for broadband. For 2021, as social distancing measures have eased and the demand cycle for our connectivity products returned to normal, net-adds have slowed down from a hangover effect so to speak.

Broadband continues to be the highest margin service. So we will continue to enhance its product offerings. We added 25,000 broadband RGUs during the quarter, for a total of MXN5.6 million. For the 12th consecutive month, we have been number one in the Netflix ISP [Technical Issues] trustworthy and competitive service. We continue to observe good results in voice RGUs, as we added 68,000 during the third quarter. We have been very successful at upselling this service to our customers.

We have 59,000 net video disconnections during the quarter, largely due to customers prioritizing broadband services and looking to reduce their monthly bills. We keep strengthening our customer retention programs with particular focus on video. The fact that many customers kept [Technical Issues] help in retaining video use in the future. Mobile customers continue to grow. At the end of the quarter, we had 139,000 RGUs, an increase of 18,000 from last quarter. Looking forward, as the economy keeps improving, we expect demand for our services to increase with potential opportunities in our small and medium-sized business segment.

On the other hand, we don't foresee the extraordinary surge in demand we experienced in 2020 because of the pandemic. We are strengthening our sales promotion strategies and our customer retention programs to takeover of these simultaneous effects. In September, we made price realignments in two of our flagship broadband products [Technical Issues] our sales by the end of the quarter. We expect this positive trend to continue.

Before turning the call back to Alfonso, let me [Technical Issues] 2 million homes with fiber this year is on track. We ended the third quarter with 65 completion of our full year goal, up from 25% at the end of the second quarter. This will help us to gradually accelerate RGU net-adds from 2022 onwards. By the end of the third quarter, we had successfully launched fiber to the home services in the cities of Guadalajara, Toluca and Durango. We are convinced that the expansion to selective location makes a lot of sense for easy [Phonetic], considering that we have a nationally recognized brand, exclusive content and high-quality service with competitive offers.

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, PBT. Now let me turn the call over to Alex Penna.

Alexandre Penna -- Chief Executive Officer of Sky

Thank you, Alfonso. At Sky, revenue declined by 2.5% year-on-year during the quarter, driven by lower recharges of prepaid packages, as children are going back to school and the workers are [Technical Issues]. Operating segment income fell by 7.2%, driven by the amortization of certain sporting events, such as the UEFA Euro 2020 and the CONMEBOL America Cup. Sky added 27,000 RGUs, despite having 2,000 video subs disconnections during the quarter. On the broadband side, we added 15,000 RGUs during the quarter, reaching a total of 722,000 broadband RGUs. In the aggregate, including our MVNO service, which added 13,000 RGUs during the quarter, we closed with approximately 8.2 million RGUs.

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Alex. Regarding capex, year-to-date, we have invested $918 million of which $680 million in cable. As we discussed during the call for the first quarter, our capex target for 2021, includes $850 million in cable or $200 million more than what we invested in 2020 given that we will pass 2 million homes with fiber, $250 million in Sky and $75 million in content and other businesses.

I'm happy to share with you that in September, Mexico's Telco regulator IFT and the Antitrust Commission, COFECE, approved the merger of our content assets with Univision. The transaction is still pending some required regulatory approvals in the United States. In the meantime, we have been working closely to prepare the integration with Univision ahead of the closing, which will allow us to execute the digital transformation strategy and the launch of the global streaming platform as planned.

Also, on September 13th, we announced an agreement with Live Nation Entertainment to move forward with the sale of our unconsolidated 40% equity stake in OCESA for a total consideration of MXN5.2 billion. Although this transaction had already been approved by regulators, the time for its closing has elapsed. Therefore, we are waiting for new regulatory approvals to close, which we expect could be received before year-end.

To wrap up, with consolidated [Technical Issues] segment income growing by 7.4% and 9.2% year-on-year respectively, during the first nine months of 2021. Bernardo and I feel confident that our operating performance for the full year will show strong recovery. In addition, the strategic initiatives implemented this year, including the merger of our content assets with Univision, the expansion of our FTTH network and the monetization of non-core assets will materially strengthen our competitive position to achieve sustainable growth over the coming years.

Now, we are ready to take your questions. Sarah, could you please provide instructions for the Q&A?

Questions and Answers:

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question from the line of Fred Mendes at Bank of America. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Fred Mendes -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Hello, good morning, everyone and thanks for the call. I have two questions here on my side. The first one is, capex is increasing. Obviously, it does take some time between getting the homes passed and getting the net-adds, but despite the strong increase in capex to reach our goal of 2 million homes passed, net-adds [Indecipherable] a downward trend. So how should we expect, how do you see this net-adds as we move forward? This is my first question. And then the second question on cable as well, if there is a major difference that you already observed in between the performance where you have FTTH and the performance where you have cable, if you have to change -- basically it's heavier, a stronger performance over cable or not really? Thank you.

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Hi, Fred. You're absolutely right that of course the expansion of the FTTH network and the deployment [Technical Issues] takes time and takes aggressive investments and so it takes time to pick up the -- to install the network to deploy the fiber and pick up the subscribers. What I can say conceptually is that the need for in-home connectivity in Mexico is still huge and broadband penetration is still very low at around 60%. So these factors plus the additional 2 million homes that we're passing with FTTH, as you described this year, should allow us to accelerate RGU net-adds and that will -- because of this lag become more evident in 2022.

I'll ask Antonio to expand on this.

Jose Antonio Gonzalez Anaya -- Chief Executive Officer of Izzi Grupo Televisa's Cable Company

Yes. Thank you, Fred. One part as a bit of background, let's remember that the net-adds for 2020 were an outlier. And we're suffering from what we kind of call a hangover effect in 2021, lots of people contracted broadband last year and therefore we're not having as many people contract or higher broadband this year. To put this in perspective, in 2019, we added 800,000 RGUs, while the number in 2020 was close to 1.4 million, but in 2021, we see two effects: on the one hand, the demand for connectivity has returned to pandemic levels and on the other, the economy is bouncing back.

So we're trying to serve these two effects, strengthening our sales promotion and our customer retention programs. There's also a new issue that kind of explains your question, which is, we made a small adjustment in one of our flagship broadband products in September. And the September number is markedly different than the number -- that the net-add numbers for the previous four months. So we expect that the twitch or the change in the price, in the broadband flagship product and the building that we're doing, should move us in the future toward more solid net-adds in broadband.

Fred Mendes -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Very, very clear Alfonso and Anaya. Thank you.

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

We will now take our next question from the line of Alejandro Chavelas at Credit Suisse. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Alejandro Chavelas -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Hello, Televisa team, thanks for taking my question. Congratulations on the results. I just wanted to get a little bit more color on the RGU losses in pay TV, they seem to accelerate a little bit sequentially. I was wondering if it was related to a change in pricing of broadcast or something. I think you have mentioned in the past that consumers don't really save a lot when they cut their pay TV subscription within triple play. So, a little bit more color on that would be helpful. And I have another question after.

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Hi, Alejandro, I'll ask Antonio to talk about the video RGUs disconnections.

Jose Antonio Gonzalez Anaya -- Chief Executive Officer of Izzi Grupo Televisa's Cable Company

Thank you, Alejandro. As we've mentioned before, the new green video platforms present the challenge, linear TV present the challenge, not only in Mexico, but all over the world. In addition, the economic environment has been difficult. Most of our households -- I have a few points to make on this. Most of our households continue to be our broadband customers. Our bundle is competitive, offering affordable pay TV services. So we believe that once the economy improves, this will recover. And we are seeing some incipient results that our triple play sales have remained robust in the last few months. So we're very encouraged by that.

As a strategy, following the global tenancy, we are continuing to push our strategy to become a content aggregator on top of our linear TV content, which is pretty popular. We are including several streaming services in our cable packages, such as Blim, Netflix, Disney and Amazon Prime. So that way we're trying to set up some of those offerings. We -- I think another issue that is very important is, we are strengthening our video platform to improve the customer experience in navigating the different streaming services, and I think that will be a key differentiator for us, if people can serve the different steaming services without having to leave our set-top box and then come back and change inputs etc., that's going to make a big difference for us. So I think, in all of this, we should be able to maintain our video customers in the future. Thank you, Alex.

Alejandro Chavelas -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Great. Perhaps just a follow-up. This one is on the increasing content costs. Obviously, you had already mentioned that we will see content cost rise significant [Indecipherable]. But I was wondering, how much of this is related perhaps to developing the new series for the global streaming platform?

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Well, as you might remember, we had a full plan to revamp our content production some years ago. And of course, we're investing more content, we have no new series, we have -- what we have now called serialus which is a shorter version and a modernized version of the traditional telenovelas stories. But those have a faster pace, those have less episodes, have less -- a little less drama, so -- and they have proven to be very successful.

Univision's prime time, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, now is 100% based on Televisa content. So Univision will rely less on acquiring content from third-parties. And this content has proved to be very successful, if you look at Univision's numbers during the third quarter. So I think, of course, we'll continue to invest in producing content and that content will be better. We have the tremendous advantage of having the best and most effective [Technical Issues] of content in Spanish in the world in Mexico City, and we'll use that very efficient tool to produce more content.

So I think streaming, of course, we will produce content ourselves for the streaming platform and we will also produce through third-parties, that will be key to the launching of the global streaming platform together with Univision. You'll be seeing very exciting products on the streaming platform, of course, higher quality products. So I think you'll be happy with the product, and we'll see a lot of subscriptions and a lot of sales.

Alejandro Chavelas -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

We will now take our next question from the line of Matthew Harrigan with Benchmark. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Matthew Harrigan -- Benchmark -- Analyst

Thank you. Congratulations on the results. A couple of days ago, Netflix reported fairly modest results for the Latin American region in terms of their additions. And I think there is a consensus there, as far as mature -- business is maturing. Is there any read through there to the potential of your business, I mean clearly you're much more AVOD focused and you have more content than Netflix does, particularly outside scripted programing. But can you talk a little bit more about the TAM down there? And do you have any comments on Peacock in the U.S., looking to do a lot more Spanish language programming? Thank you.

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Hi, Matt. Yes, what I can tell you is that, we're very excited about the product. Of course, we're going to be 100% focused on the Spanish language, which as we have mentioned the second most spoken language in the world, aside from Mandarin. So we're focusing on this population, which is -- which has a GDP of more than $7 trillion, and of that half -- $3.5 trillion is just the Mexican economy and the U.S. Hispanic market GDP. So we're going to focus 100% on the production of Spanish content. We have moved a long way in this very few months to launch this product, this global product next year, of course, we are already working on the production of original content. The new premium subscription Tier of our global streaming platform will feature more than 6,000 hours of Spanish language content, with more than 30 original productions throughout the next year.

We're going to feature globally recognized producers, creators, writers, including Maria Duenas, Santiago Limon, even Mario Vargas Llosa, who was the Nobel literature award winner. We just closed our first look deal with Eugenio Derbez, who is a top comedian in Latin America, he is Mexican. So, we have basically -- I mean we're speaking to renowned actresses, actors, producers, writers, etc. So we are going to focus 100% of our attention to the Spanish language. And we believe that having the huge library of Televisa plus this new premium productions that are going to be doing exclusively on our new platform, this will be a success throughout the region.

Matthew Harrigan -- Benchmark -- Analyst

That's great. Thank you.

Operator

We will now take our next question from the line of Alejandro Gallostra from BBVA. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Alejandro Gallostra -- BBVA -- Analyst

Hi, good morning everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. Our first -- I'd like to know if you can make forward comments about the good performance of Univision, which royalties increased 20% this quarter. And second, if you could be more specific about the timing to launch the new streaming platform at Univision. And how you plan to do it. If you're planning to launch several platforms at once AVOD and SVOD, or if you plan to do gradually, or maybe you plan to launch it in the U.S. and Mexico simultaneously in the rest of the world later on?

And I'm sorry, if I may, I was wondering if your content margins will improve once you launch these streaming platforms in some -- and standard you're already spending in producing content for these new streaming platforms that you will be launching next year, and you're still not generating revenues out of it. So I was wondering if margins should improve once you launch the series? Thank you.

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Well, Alejandro, yeah, we're -- what I can tell you is, we are very excited about what's happening at Univision. In essence, Wade Davis has revamped the whole team, but more specifically the sales team, he brought in Donna Speciale from Warner and she is doing a spectacular job in selling, advertising and positioning this advertising. Of course, this is all based on the tremendous success of our content of the ratings that the content is producing. The success also of the Mexican Soccer League games that Univision is transmitting.

So we are very excited about what's going on, both on the traditional business of selling, advertising and also on what we're seeing in terms of the new streaming platform. What I can tell you and you're absolutely right, we are delighted to see that the royalties from Univision amounted this quarter to $110 million, and you're right to point out that they were 20% higher than last year, but more importantly because of the easy comp as a result of COVID, this was 10% higher than 2019 royalties for the third quarter.

So that only demonstrates that Univision is doing a tremendous job in the traditional business. And we believe that this will continue next year because we saw the upfront results and they look spectacular. They were -- and we had the best upfront in the history of the company, both in terms of pricing and in terms of volume. We can compare this upfront to what happened in 2016, 2017. So we're very enthusiastic also about next year and the advertising side of that business.

Now, as to your second part of the question, which has to do with the launching of the streaming platform, will be launched in early 2022, SVOD platform in the second half of '22. We will start with Mexico and the United States and then expand throughout the region and other countries and territories. Of course, as I mentioned [Technical Issues] of the Spanish speaking GDP, that is our addressable market, half of that $3.5 trillion is just Mexico and [Technical Issues] market. So, of course, we'll begin there and then we'll expand to other places.

Alejandro Gallostra -- BBVA -- Analyst

Thank you very much. And I was wondering maybe you could comment on the potential margin improvement in the content division, since -- I understand that you're pending in producing content for this new platform, but it's still not generating revenues yet.

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I think. What I can tell you, Alejandro, we're not giving guidance as to our margin, and however, what I can tell you is that, we merge with Univision the combined company will see an expansion.

Alejandro Gallostra -- BBVA -- Analyst

Okay, great, thank you very much.

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Alejandro Gallostra -- BBVA -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

We will now take our next question from the line of Gordon Lee at BTG. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Gordon Lee -- BTG Pactual -- Analyst

Yes, good morning. Thank you very much for the call. Most of my questions were on the content side and they've been answered. But I was wondering if you could just give us, not precise guidance, but would it be fair to say thinking about capex going forward at the consolidated level that we should be thinking about $1 billion annually, that's sort of the new run rate given the outlook for the cable business. Thank you.

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Hi, Gordon. Yes, it'll be around there.

Gordon Lee -- BTG Pactual -- Analyst

Perfect, very clear. Fair enough. Thank you.

Operator

We will now take our next question from the line of Gilberto Garcia at Barclays. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Gilberto Garcia -- Barclays -- Analyst

Hi, good morning. Thank you for the call. On the closing of the Univision transaction, can you provide any color on any potential extraordinary corporate expenses that you might have? And what is the corporate expense like -- going to look like once the transaction is completed? And also on our press conference a couple of weeks ago, the President mentioned that the government is expecting around MXN10 billion as a tax payment for the transaction. Can you confirm whether this number is final or is it still in flux? Thank you.

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Well, Gilberto. Yeah, as -- of course, the corporate expenses will be reduced appropriately once we resize what we have called the RemainCo or that is Grupo Televisa. And you will see the effect next year. As to the payment of taxes, it will be around there or I mean, a little [Technical Issues] Gilberto, are you still there?

Gilberto Garcia -- Barclays -- Analyst

Yes, I'm sorry. I couldn't hear, you said, it would be around there or a little and then it got cut off?

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Yes, it'll be around there or a little higher than that number, but around that figure.

Gilberto Garcia -- Barclays -- Analyst

All right. Okay. Understood. Thank you very much.

Operator

We have no further questions. [Operator Instructions]

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Thank you very much for participating in the call. And, of course, as always, we're here to answer any other question you may have. So thank you very much.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]

Duration: 39 minutes

Call participants:

Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega -- Co-Chief Executive Officer

Jose Antonio Gonzalez Anaya -- Chief Executive Officer of Izzi Grupo Televisa's Cable Company

Alexandre Penna -- Chief Executive Officer of Sky

Fred Mendes -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Alejandro Chavelas -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Matthew Harrigan -- Benchmark -- Analyst

Alejandro Gallostra -- BBVA -- Analyst

Gordon Lee -- BTG Pactual -- Analyst

Gilberto Garcia -- Barclays -- Analyst

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